Dear Prof.Dr.A.Chira,

            This is my first time to join this blog. Thanks to A.Chira who creates this blog and gives us a good learning through sports and all the well-known athletes; and makes the lessons so interesting. Highly appreciate your efforts. Honestly, I am really not keen on and not good at sports. It cannot interest me, in fact. Once having a skim reading through this blog, it is, something behind the lesson to consider. Do not hesitate to share and discuss in the blog if you think so.

Below is to share my opinion on the

1.            Olympic Games in China, and

2.            How to enhance human capital for the global economy through sports.

Olympic Games – What is the message China wants to convey???

In China, Mao Zedong saw sports victories as a way to prove the superiority of the socialist way. Then, China started to cultivate national teams. Sports also played an eminently political role in China. When Mao decided the time had come to make friends in the West, he found sports a handy tool for that purpose, too.

Chinese nationalists in this century saw athletics as a way to create vigorous men who could wage war and change the country's reputation as the "sick man of East Asia.” On the other hand, in these three decades, China has entered into normal relations with most countries, becoming a diplomatic as well as an economic player in Asia and beyond. By hosting the Games, China is going to celebrate this status. Perhaps more important, it is going to receive international recognition of its achievements and the acceptance of the Communist Party toward political change.

Is the 2008 Beijing Olympics, where China hopes to win more medals than any other nations, intended to have a political message to the world???

How to enhance human capital for the global economy through sports

(From the report by the Economic Review Subcommittee)

Some interesting and practical guidelines are made in the report. For example:

1.            To nurture a creative mindset for future generations by promoting successful sports education in schools and widening the scope of sports education.

            The situation cannot change overnight. But Ministry of Education can play a vital role by commencing long term planning now to effectively deliver sports education as an integral part of the formal curriculum, of equal importance to other areas of study ie: English.

2.            Government needs to send strong signals endorsing the importance of sports to a creative workforce and for successful economic development.

            Speeches by nation leader should emphasize the importance of sports, policy decisions should reflect the support by fostering a more accommodating society and through greater funding for sports, ie: China leader, Mao Zedong strongly supported sport activities and used for political purpose.

3.            To increase opportunities and awareness of people to participate in sport activity

            Presently there is a low level of awareness and appreciation of the importance of sports. To date, the key message delivered to the public on the benefits of sports is health and fitness (keeping fit is the reason for sports participation) There is a need to promote sports from a new angle, ie sports add value to a person’s work performance, sports leading to reputation and prosperity of yourself, the family, and the nation.

Quote: “But winning medals should not be the be all and end all of sport. Simple participation, in the spirit of fair play and sportsmanship, is equally important. Health, vitality, competitiveness and teamwork are other qualities that we can develop. We do not need to be a medal-winning athlete to benefit from sport. “

PM Goh Chok Tong, July 2001

Quote: “Sports make such a good laboratory for exploring learning and change. It is because performance in sports is so directly observable, and the goals are so clear, that differences in performance are more visible”.

Timothy Gallwey

Author, Inner Game book

Best regards,

Chadarat Hengsadeekul